


Woman King

by Toricchi



Category: Dragon Kishi-dan (Dragon Knights)
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-11
Updated: 2007-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:51:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toricchi/pseuds/Toricchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a lot hidden in Draqueen's history if you go digging.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Woman King

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bearmoon](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Bearmoon).



> Birthday fic for Bearmoon. Title from the Iron and Wine song.

So many books, each dustier and drier than the other. Fine cookery. Dresses. Courtly etiquette. A treatise on fan-dancing. Instructions on how to do her hair. A manual of painting her nails, for god's sake. Lykouleon barely notices she exists half the time; why would he care what colour her nails were? She sighs and allows herself to relax just slightly from the ramrod posture she's supposed to be holding, and earns herself a pinch from Matron.

"Miss needs to apply herself," she says, looking down her nose at her, "or Miss will find things very difficult when she weds His Majesty."

Miss is never going to need to know how to cook another meal in her life, so what's the point, in any of this? It's all just fussy, busywork with no real information, nothing she can use in the life she's walking into as the Emperor's queen. Hors d'oeuvres? Lykouleon's got an entire army of chefs who cater to his every whim. If he wants hors d'oeuvres, he can get his own.

She's so relieved when the clock finally ticks over signalling the end of the session that she heaves a very unladylike sigh and earns herself another pinch from Matron. Under that lace-encrusted sleeve, her arm's slowing turning purple. There's so many rules and regulations to learn, and they're just the ones that are written down. There's a thousand more unstated laws and those are almost worst to step over, like the time she'd accidentally addressed a Duchess as a Lady and Kai-stern had had to step in and smooth her ruffled feathers so the woman didn't leave the party. The red tape in the palace is almost as binding as her corset and sometimes it seems she's never going to get it untangled in her head in time for the wedding.

She nearly trips over her skirts when she tries to get up. It's all this extra material in the gowns they dress her up in every day, like a pretty, porcelain doll all decked out in jewels and gold embroidery; the heavy fabric weighs her down and is stifling in hot weather. At home she'd gone around in half this, and even in bare legs if it was hot. Matron would probably have a heart attack at that.

Matron's left the books on the desk so she gathers them up. Maybe she'll return them to the library, if that's the ladylike thing to do. After all these lessons, she's getting the impression that being a lady means being as useless as possible. Endless rounds of studying and scolding, and all she's learning is how to be an ornament. That's well and good, but it's not what she'd come to Draqueen to do. Of all the luck to be the one in a generation born with Dragon Eyes. She'd pop them out herself if it meant she could ride a horse again without five attendants watching her anxiously in case she fell, or more likely, messed up her hair.

The last book in the pile she's never seen before. It's smaller and darker and its battered cover looks a lot older than the rest. She picks it up out of curiosity and it smells ancient, like dust and earth; things buried and forgotten by everyone else. The cover is made out of something hard and covered in leather, maybe wood. The whole thing threatens to fall apart in her hands at any moment, so she turns the first page gingerly. The yellowed parchment is written through with a tiny cramped script she recognizes from her studies as the old dragon tongue.

Maybe there's some good to all this, after all.

She sits down, absorbed by this discovery, completely forgetting to arrange her skirts the way she's been taught, and that she's got a deportment lesson in five minutes. The ink is faded, but she can still decipher the text with a little concentration: The Ancient and Most Noble History of Draqueene.

How long has it been since they'd spelled Draqueen with an 'e'? Fascinated, she turns the next page. Being an Account of the First Days of our Grand Empire, and the Rulers Thereof. The next page is missing; nothing's left except a ragged scrap of parchment where it should have hung. How long had they been printing books in Draqueen? How old could this book be? She pages back carefully and scours the title page again but there's no date. Surely something this old should be kept behind one of the glass cases in the library where the oldest scrolls are displayed and the librarians and Alfeegi come to glare at anyone who comes too close to them. No one has let her learn anything real, but how is she supposed to understand the history of the country she was going to be the bloody queen of if she doesn't have access to these things? This one book is already more helpful than a dozen of Matron's lessons.

The next page almost makes her gasp. It's a detailed illustration, done in black and white and faded from the wash of time but still clear enough to make out the shape of the queen's scepter; the jewels on her horse's bridle; the cord holding her long curly hair back from her face; and the look of absolute determination on her face as she raises her sword. A queen who had fought? Matron would have had a fit. She seems to think a queen is only good for sitting around looking pretty and having lots of sons. But this one… this one had done something.

Letisha, the first Queen of our Noble City, the next page of paper-thin parchment read. She tamed the wild Dragons that had been feeding on the peasants and they came as servants to the Castle. When her husband Cagaran, the first Emperor, was killed in Battle she and a small Retinue held back the maraudering Daemons and won a most glorious Victory when the Queen herself sleweth their leader.

Not one mention of how slender her waist or how silvery her voice, and Raseleane's excitement is beginning to mount. She flicks on to the next chapter which recounts the exploits of the legendary Faerie Queen – no-one had mentioned that when they were checking out her bloodline to make sure she was one hundred percent pure dragon. Chenarie, the fifth queen had united the seven provinces of Dusis after a long and bloody civil war. Falwen, the thirteenth, had been famous for the flowering of literature and drama at her court, led by names she recognizes as female. Page after page tells of strong, skilled queens; their husbands and sons mentioned only in passing, or as footnotes. Why had it changed? Somewhere along the line, the queens had gone from ruling the country to passing their scepter to their husbands while they kneeled at their feet. She thumbs ahead while her mind overtakes her hand and she forgets to be mindful of the fragile pages in her haste. Why?

The pages fall open to an obviously well-thumbed chapter, since the binding in the middle is hanging on by a thread. Elenvira, the Demon Queen, the dark title threatens and heart in mouth, she begins to read.

_Elenvira, the twentieth queen, was the daughter of Prellena and an unnamed demon lord. Her mother kept the secret of his name to her grave. The revelation that the next queen of Dusis was half-demon was the biggest scandal the country had ever seen and tore rifts in every court and province. Elenvira ascended the throne only after a bitter succession war which saw three of her cousins in line to the throne disappear mysteriously, although it could never be proved she had any hand in the affair. She ruled in relative peace for five years until her aides claimed she began to act strangely. She had her most trusted councillor, a wise man named Henrias, executed, claiming he was trying to poison her and refused to hold any public meetings, only entertaining small audiences in her personal quarters or sending her chancellors to deal with any urgent matters. Amidst political unrest and the flaring up of the hitherto-dormant border wars, rumours that the queen was mentally ill and unfit to rule flourished and further added to the increasing anxiety in the government. Elenvira refused all medical treatment, claiming there was nothing wrong with her, and in fact began to refuse any visitors except the Matron, never leaving her room but, it is said, sitting in her room in darkness crying. The Head Doctor of Dusis, Phangoen, diagnosed her with hysteria, caused by her mixture of dragon and demon blood. After three months the city was becoming increasingly unstable and riots were breaking out and so an elite council of the Emperor and his Dragon Ministers declared her unfit to rule. When they went to inform her of the news of her impeachment, she murdered three of them in a bloody rage before she could be subdued. She died three days later in the dungeon in shackles._

Her eyes are wet with unexpected tears, and her hand is shaking slightly when she turns the next page. It's marked A New Era: Xanos and his Ministers. There's no mention of his queen at all, just dry politics and military descriptions. The rest of the book is the same, but there's an occasional reference to Elenvira; always in the negative, accused of being a witch and a demon who brought a curse down on Draqueen. She closes the cover heavily, her head reeling as she tries to take in what she's just read.

Once upon a time, there'd been real queens in Dusis. The poor woman. Raseleane knows, already, what it's like to be alone. Her family is a hundred miles away now, and any number of the court women would rather have her fiancé than her friendship. For Elenvira to have her power and position wrested away when she was so obviously suffering… and she had been the last of the queens to have any power. Raseleane doesn't have to be a genius to see that the male ministers had seized control of the palace, used her downfall as an excuse to slowly suffocate future queens, and kept it right to this day. The history in the little book, the queen's history, certainly isn't being taught in any of the lessons she's being given. It had been pushed aside to some dark corner of the library where it would have been forgotten – and that's probably exactly what the ministers would have wanted. They'd managed to reduce the queens into pawns in their maneuvers. They wouldn't have wanted any young upstarts to go getting any ideas about anything other than making heirs for the Dragon Emperor…

A knock on the door catches her attention, and she quickly tucks the book into the folds of her dress and conjures up a composed smile. "Yes, Tetheus?"

He sketches a small bow. "If she would accompany me, my lady is supposed to be attending a deportment lesson at the moment."

"Actually, Tetheus," she tilts her head thoughtfully and flashes him a blinding smile, the one that always gets her what she wants, "if it's all the same to you, I would much rather take fencing lessons."

"Fencing, my lady?" It's said completely blandly, but she thinks she can detect a hint of amusement in that stony face.

"Much more practical than mincing around with a book on one's head, I think." She gets to her feet and sweeps out of the room proudly, standing tall with the new knowledge of the little book, feeling inspired to be a little daring. "Would you mind teaching me?"

"Not at all, my lady," he says, with just the slightest suggestion of mischievous laughter curling his lip. "Shall we?"


End file.
